Chris Broom

Music session gets QA Hospital patients out of beds

A WIDOWER had part of his bowel removed at Queen Alexandra Hospital after doctors wrongly diagnosed him with cancer.

James McLeish, of Dale Square in Leigh Park, was only told of the mistake when he went back to the hospital for a routine check-up in early 2012.

And he is now believed to be in line for a major payout after Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust wrote to apologise to the 69-year-old.

The retired bus driver first went to his GP in late 2011 with a severely upset stomach.

He was referred to QA, where they carried out a number of tests, including a biopsy.

He was told that these tests revealed he had cancer of the colon and would need surgery to remove part of his bowel.

Surgeons carried out the operation in November 2011 and he spent two weeks in hospital recovering, but he was left needing to use a colostomy bag.

‘The operation went well as far as I could tell,’ he said. ‘You trust these people and what they tell you.’

He had a further operation to repair the colon and remove the colostomy bag.

It was only after this at a check-up when he was told: ‘I’ve got some good news for you. You haven’t got cancer after all.’

Mr McLeish said: ‘He told me it was better being safe than sorry, which I thought was a rather cavalier attitude.’

Mr McLeish said he had received a letter from trust chief executive Ursula Ward. He added: ‘I have received a letter from the hospital, which I must admit I didn’t understand because it was all technical jargon.

‘But the gist of it was that they had misread something because they didn’t have a consultant there and they pressed on without it being checked.’

Before this incident, Mr McLeish had generally enjoyed good health, but he says the operations have left him with ongoing health problems.

And he said: ‘I did feel as if I had lost control of my body and I feel very lethargic these days.

‘I’ve no trust in doctors at all since this happened, especially at QA.’

Mr McLeish is understood to have reached an out of court settlement with the hospital trust through law firm Ross Aldridge.